“Yeah, that’s me,” he answered, but he was far more concerned with making sure Libby was all right than meeting a fan. He touched her shoulder—the one that wasn’t covered in bird shit. “You okay, plum? Got that crap karma sorted?”
Trembling from the onslaught of adrenaline, she leaned into him. And God help him, he couldn’t keep from wrapping his arm around her.
“That was quite a convergence of energy—truly an astral projection. My conscious emptied out of me and flowed into the cosmos,” she replied, making no bloody sense, but she wasn’t assaulting anyone with plastic dicks or howling at the moon. So, all in all, it was an improvement.
“Much ado about nothing, right officers?” he remarked, pulling the policemen’s flummoxed gazes from the yoga nutter curled into his side.
“Not exactly. We still have to take you in,” the taller cop answered.
Double bollocks.
“You do?” Libby shrieked, gripping the edge of his hoodie and balling the fabric in her hand as she anchored herself to him.
“What are the charges?” he asked.
“For one thing, the two of you are disturbing the peace, and we also observed you engaged in lewd conduct,” the shorter cop announced.
“Lewd conduct? What makes you think we were engaged in lewd conduct?” Libby stammered.
A good question.
“We observed a sexually charged act intent on stimulating another in front of a person or persons,” the taller cop rattled off like he was giving his usual order at a coffee shop. Bloody hell! Did people throw sex toys at each other so often in this city that the cops had the ordinance memorized?
Bugger. This was bad.
“That’s not what was happening. I can assure you of that,” Libby pleaded.
“We saw what we saw, Miss Lamb. Getting off on throwing sex toys at your boyfriend in front of a group of bystanders is considered lewd behavior,” the taller cop explained while the shorter one mumbled into his radio.
“But I’m not his girlfriend,” Libby stammered.
The tall officer’s demeanor sharpened. “You throw vibrators at random people for fun? Be careful how you answer, miss. That’s a crime, too.”
This had gone tits up in a hot second.
“Libby, I’ve watched enough American crime dramas to know we need to stop talking and play nice,” he cautioned.
“We’re being arrested?” Libby blurted.
“You are,” the shorter cop answered, then started reading them their bloody rights.
“Just give me a second. I need to let my friends know what’s happening,” Libby blathered, the words spilling out in a frantic tumble as she removed her mobile from her pocket and hammered out a quick text.
He watched as the light from her cell lit her face and pulled his mobile from his pocket. It wasn’t a bad idea to reach out to friends. Rowen could hack into the police database and erase this, or Mitch could cook for the cops and charm them with his delicious food. Maybe Landon could sing or play guitar or piano—whatever the hell he did. Jesus, his thoughts were reeling as he banged out a message to the bloody prick chat group.
Erasmus Cress: How’s your Friday night going, chaps? I’m getting arrested.
Brief, polite, and to the point. Quite British of him, if he should say so.
He pocketed his mobile, then glanced at the boxing gym. Augie stood there with his mouth ajar and a toothpick hanging from his lip.
“Hold tight, Raz. I’m working the phones to see what I can do,” Briggs called, pacing across the pavement with two mobiles, one pressed to his ear as the agent stared at the other.
“Bloody hell, plum,” he huffed. “What have you gotten us into?”
Libby released his hoodie and scoffed. “Do not blame me. This is a result of your cocky, beef-tastic karma. You put this energy out, and now we both have to pay for it.”
The nerve of this woman.
“I can’t believe you’re blaming me for this. And by the way, girls don’t seem to mind my cocky, beef-tastic ways,” he snarled.
She barked a little laugh, brimming with skepticism. “Maybe that’s true. But I’m no girl. I’m a woman. A woman who finds your arrogant act ridiculous and a danger to others’ auras and sense of chi.”
“There you go again, talking crazy! It’s no wonder we’re getting arrested,” he chided as the officer gestured for them to put their hands behind their backs.
“Handcuffs!” he eked out.
“This is as much for your protection as it is for ours,” the shorter cop replied, eyeing Libby warily. And the cop was right. The shaken, wounded bird version of the yoga babe had vanished, and in her place, this plum nutter looked ready to scratch his eyes out.
The click of the cuffs added to the snap and flash of a dozen photographers capturing this salacious moment.
What a bloody catastrophe!
Side by side with their arms pinned behind their back like shameful purveyors of lewd acts, the cops grabbed Libby’s bag, marched them to the squad car, then helped them inside. George and Joey, their arresting officers for the evening, slid into the front seat. And just like that, they were off.
“How will I balance my chi after something like this?” she lamented, glaring up at him.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “How about chucking nipple clamps at random people on the street or spice it up with a cock ring. So many random options to consider when balancing chi.”
Was he losing it, too? He didn’t know a damn thing about balancing chi other than, when attempting to do it with sex toys, one could find themselves in handcuffs.
She stared into his eyes, her gaze softening. “This wasn’t random,” she said, the anger draining from her voice. “This was supposed to set everything right. The rage yoga should have dispelled the energy. I thought that’s what Ida wanted me to do.”
He couldn’t look away. In the back of the squad car headed to the clink, he couldn’t ignore her pain and frustration. Sure, she was bonkers, and who the hell was Ida? He sure didn’t know. Ida could have been what she named her vibrators, or it could have been the name of the bird that shat on her shoulder. Nonetheless, her words tore into him. She was hurting, and more than that, she believed he was the cause of the pain. He needed to sort through her mystical gobbledygook and figure out what was going on.
“Why the vibrators, plum? Were those part of the dispelling plan?” he pressed, leaning in. He could feel her warm breath and sensed her frenzied energy mingling with his. Then everything shifted, and the off-kilter vibe between them evened out like the sea calming after a storm. He’d never experienced peacefulness like this. Serenity thrummed through his body in gentle beats like pearls of rain.
“The vibrator thing happened in the heat of the moment,” she answered, her voice barely a whisper.
The air transformed between them. As if he’d been entranced, he would have sworn that he could see the energy—a vibrant blue-violet hue engulfing them, cocooning them in their own private world. He focused on her face. She was doing it again, looking at him as if she saw every broken part. Like she could see what was beneath his cocky veneer. And those ripe lips of hers taunted him, called to him. Christ, the drive to kiss the bloody chi right out of her was impossible to ignore.